Tacky commerpop and the slob chic in Poland?

Other than draining people's pockets and making a fortune for its animators by exploiting gullible wannabees, does today's cheap, tacky, tawdry and tasteless commerpop (pop culture) have any redeeming features?

Go to a supermarket and see all the garbage (celebrity gossip) rags on the magazine rack. And then watch how little by little ordinary people begin emulating the thoroughly mucked-up showbiz crowd.

Madumma (although she ain't dumb) did a video way back wakling down the street, singing and holding a paper cup of coffee and millions world-wide ran out to drink coffee out of those silly brown paper cups you now see everywhere. Coffee out of a real cup at a café or at home is far more enjoyable than walking about with a paper one, but the paper-cup makers are having a field day.

A major part of commerpop nonsense is the slob chic -- people actually paying good money to buy brand-new jeans that are tattered, faded, stained and have holes at the knees. Or young actors at Academy Awards presentations who hadn't shaved in 5 - 10 days, and soon imitators world-wide go about looking like slum dwellers or homeless street scum.

Many more examples could be cited but the workings of commerpop can be summed up quite simply: it not only gets rich by exploiting the gullible but actually makes fools of them by getting them to fall for idiotic passing fads and crazes.

Is this a thread or just a rant about hating modern Poland?

So you're on today. Welcome back to the tag team. No this is about language. As a wordsmith, language and languages have always fascinated me.


Sorry, I thought you were replying to my Polish definition of "tacky" which was in a totally different post. I was surprised you used the term "rant" in conneciton to a lexicographic post.


This has to do with commerpop in Poland or wherever. Most of it is of non-Polish origin but the topic encompasses anyone who espouses and practises or is influenced by it. This topic was never tackled en masse, only peripherally in numerous otehr posts. Since it impacts so many people's lives, shouldn't one analyse and disucss the mechancis and logistics, propaganda techniques, social engineering, subliminal persusaion and other tools deployed to make so many people do so many stupid, outrageous things to financially benefit a small, already extremely wealthy elite of shakers and movers.

One interesting aspect of commerpop is the subculture, an extremely lucrative field. Thought up in a corporate boardroom and designed on a computer, it creates a plethora of almost limitless financial opportunities including readily exploitable new lifestyles, buzz-words, pop stars, music, feature fims, videos, fashions, gadgets, etc. After a few years, when interest begins to wane, it's back to the boardroom and drawing-board for a new subculture and new set of lifestyles, buzz-words, pop stars, music, feature fims, videos, fashions, gadgets, etc..

Is that a rhetorical question?

What does this have to do with modernity. Gullible fools and suckers have existed since time immmeorial as have sharpies and crafty conmen ready and willing to exploit them. Except it was never as institutionalised as it is in today's commerpop era. Do you equate modern Poland with brainlessness? Commerpop is the scourge of modern Poladn and every other country where it has taken root.

I think it's about hating life.

That and wanting the world (specifically Poland) to be more like North Korea - every form of cultural output, every product in the shops, every new idea or fashion approved and permitted by someone.

The question is actually: by whom?

Only if you define life as an assualt by a small but powerful, influential and heavily bankrolled elite (the movers and shakers of commerpop) on hapless, gullible society for the express purpose of toal exploitation and maximum profits regardless of any consequences suffered by the said society. Those consequences incldue the general downdumbing of society, especially guillible youth, normativising addictions, violence, subcultures and mindless fads and crazes.

This sounds entirely like the PiS raison d'etre. The Party is run by a small, powerful, influential and heavily bankrolled elite, who provide a propaganda onslaught to the masses to dumb them down. They focus heavily on brainwashing the gullible youth, who are led to believe that only they know the truth, and they become fanatical as a result. Furthermore, the leaders of the cult appear to have no real beliefs themselves, but rather adjust and adapt them for maximum gain.

You seem to be bang on the money today, Polonius.

Po, you whine and whine across many threads here about this thing you call "tacky pop culture" and rail about all the dangers you see lurking therein however whining is all it is; you don't suggest any alternative.

From the tone of some of your posts, even many of them, you give the distinct impression that products like music, fashionable clothes, reading materials, diets, Valentine's cards etc that some people like but you don't should be banned from the shops if they don't meet some sort of nebulous standard of quality. And you don't even suggest what that benchmark of quality is.

The initial alternative is to alert people to the danger. Presumably normal, decent, fairly educated or even well-educated people should be able to make rational, well-considered choices and choose what is superior and culturally enriching over that which is inferior, downdumbing tripe. And yet the loud, brash, all-pervasive commerpop propaganda machine turning over 24/7 has effectviely dulled many people's sense of perception and ability to make intelligent choices.

Secondly, education should do more to promote higher ethical and aestethic values, encourage people to think before they act and cultivate an abiltiy to evaluate the true worth of the things being proposed by the idea, lifestyle and physical-product market.

The major stumbling block is the profit motive taken to extreme: namely sell anything you can make a buck on regardless of the consequences for individual consumers and society as a whole. The capitalist establishment will not willingly part ways with such a golden goose. Probably the only way is through a massive education campaign which has worked as regards cigarette smoking. Once demand starts falling, even the biggest corporations can be persuaded to clean up their act.

That's not an alternative to anything; it's just another whinging Jeremiad.

People will always have very different tastes and the world is richer for that.

I prefer serious literature and music, the theatre, ballet, etc, others prefer the new Star Wars film, some sort of pop music, a tv soap and there's nothing at all wrong with that.

And after all, who actually decides what has artistic merit and what doesn't? A committee of something?

No alternative is a 100% solution, but if there was more investigative reporting exposing the machinations of commerpop and its harmful consequnces, at least some educated people would be more wary of its omnipotence and threat. Any system, especially but nto exclusively its rap-crap segment, that pollutes innocent young minds by glamourising violence, theft, vandalism, addictives, drug dealing, guns, promiscuity and woman battery lacks any redeeming social values. It only providers the filthy rich with more ill-deserved riches than they've already got.

That word implies a problem and there simply isn't one. People's tastes differ and if you don't like something (though you are very vague about what exactly you dislike and entirely silent on who decides what is of merit and what isn't) you can always become a hermit.

This isn't about tastes -- beer or cola, pizza or Big Macs, Harlquins or Gogol. It's about something that downdumbs people, detroys their sense of critical analysis and channels their interests down to the lowest, basest, most vulgar common denominator as long as someone can make a financial killing from it. Destroying the human spirit is a crime in my books. Not in yours?.

But what exactly are you suggesting does that?

A great many Hollywood films, rap music, celebromania, much Internet content promoting gossip, violence and catering to the basest human interests and then convincing the gullible (the comerpop-promoting media) this is all very cool, trendy, cutting edge and up to the minute. I know you know exactly what I mean. But since you don't have any kids maybe you're less concerned about the downdumbing and depravatory feaures of commerpop.

So basically day to day culture. And who decides what has merit and what doesn't?

On this forum Jon that area of expertise belongs to Polonius3
Maybe you didn't get that memo, I didn't either but he certainly rules the roost here on what is good and bad for Polish society.

I just take it for granted that he must be some kind of expert in the field and we should all bow down to his vast knowledge

To be an expert one would have to have a degree in sociology and the necessary research facilities to conduct proper stuides. No, it is more a question of interest in the human experience and a belief that homo sapiens is a thinking person, not a mindless, go-with-the-flow troglodyte sucker exploited by the capitalist greed machine.

That, my auld nemesis, is where we differ.
I honestly believe that the vast majority of people are unthinking, mindless gombeens.

If they weren't the world wouldn't be the god-awful mess that it is today.

But y'know, if people are happy to be unthinking and mindless then that's their prerogative. Life is too short, live and let live, y'know, we're not here for a long time, we're here for a good time.

I agree with you 100% as to the diagnosis. We differ only in regards to the prognosis. People are the way they are and we should let them remain troglodytes (your version); my version: yes, but we must do everything in our power to englighten, edcuate and hekld lift our fellow-man out of his troglodytism.

The amazing thing is the host of defenders commerpop has on PF.

Why would you 'help' people that don't want help?

Why interfere with people who are happy?

That's pretty f!cked up man.

In order to for one to be regarded as intelligent, it requires there to be a person of lesser intelligence with which to compare.
A rock will remain a rock no matter what you try to teach it. And my Belgian Shepherd dog was the smartest dog I have ever seen and I didnt teach him a thing.

Unless you teach it to melt itself, then you'd have lava, or some kind of metal ore.